Anni Albers Design for Smyrna Rug 1925

  • Not on view

Albers was one of the most esteemed students of the weaving workshop at the Bauhaus, the influential German school of modern art, architecture, and design that she first attended beginning in 1922 and subsequently taught at starting in 1928. She often began her weaving projects with design sketches, such as this drawing for a rug. In this study, she explored the theme of horizontal-vertical construction using color, shape, proportion, and rhythm. The design reveals her admiration for the work of the painter Paul Klee, who also taught at the school.

Of the weaving workshop, she later observed, “Technique was acquired as it was needed and as a foundation for future attempts. Unburdened by any practical considerations, this play with materials produced amazing results, textiles striking in their novelty, their fullness of color and texture, and possessing often a quite barbaric beauty.”

Albers used textiles as her primary artistic medium for almost forty years, experimenting directly with innovative materials and creating prototypes for industrial production. She was as acclaimed for her activities as a teacher and writer on design and weaving as she was for her textile designs. Albers continued to explore relationships of color and line, most markedly after 1963, when her interest shifted to printmaking.

Publication excerpt from MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019)
Medium
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper
Dimensions
8 1/8 x 6 9/16" (20.6 x 16.7 cm)
Credit
Gift of the designer
Object number
394.1951
Copyright
© 2023 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Department
Architecture and Design
Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].